Announcement: Kevin McClure to Speak at Unfinished Business Conference

I'm so pleased to round out the speakers for the Unfinished Business with Kevin McClure who will be both a panelist and opening sessions speaker.

Kevin has been a Christ follower for nearly 45 years and a pastor for 39. Kevin and his wife, Laura, have been married for 42 years and they have four grown children and six grandchildren. His ministry has included church planting, pastoring, consulting, writing and more. Kevin's heart is to see God's Kingdom more fully materialize in each Christian's circle of influence. He loves to equip people to pray more effectively, believing that a church can't be stronger than its prayer ministry. He currently leads Family Room Church in Shoreview, MN.

Click here for more information about the Unfinished Business Conference, taking place on Saturday, November 18th in West Saint Paul, MN. If you are interested in the conference but unable to attend, sign up here for links to documents and video available after the conference.

Speaker Announcement for Unfinished Business Conference

I'm delighted to announce that my good friend Carol Coomer will be one of our speakers at the Unfinished Business Conference! Carol is one of the founding members of Liberating Spirit, a small independent congregation, organized in 2014, that very much resembles the kind of "Evangelical Order" community that Luther described. Carol will be one of our panelists and bring her experience of helping to lead a kind of "house church" that happens to meet in a funeral home! She is also a proud mother and grandmother, and is retired from her work as the office coordinator for a medical practice.

Special Speaker Announcement for the Unfinished Business Conference

I am very excited to announce another speaker confirmed for the conference. But I can't tell you who it is.

Seriously.

I was introduced recently to a woman who is a seminary student here in town. She was raised as an atheist in northern China up until the age of 12 when her mother became a believer. She herself came to faith later, and has attended House Church in China for many years. House churches are illegal in China, where only the state-authorized church bodies are allowed to gather openly. So to avoid putting friends and family at risk back in China I won't use her name or give her hometown online.

We will be greatly privileged to have her share her perspective with us at the conference!

Click here for details and to register.

Gina Mueller to Speak at Unfinished Business Conference

I'm beginning to get confirmations from the people who will be speakers at the Unfinished Business conference, and I'm delighted to introduce you to Gina Mueller. Gina will be one of our panelists, looking at the pros, cons and unanswered questions around Luther's house church proposal. Here's her bio:

"Gina Mueller is a national leader with 3dmovements. She trains leaders and teams how to create a culture of discipleship that results in a mobilized church. As a practitioner, she’s done the hard work of going first. Gina has led teams and served in various contexts - shifting the culture of a mega church as well as church planting. She is passionate about awakening the church to live into her sentness by activating the missional creativity of ordinary people. Gina has been building and multiplying extended families on mission called Missional Communities for almost 10 years. Gina loves hanging with her neighbors, her local coffee shop, and pizza night with her family!"

You can learn more about Gina's work with the 3dm discipling movement here. I have been working with 3dm materials and coaches for 5 years and HIGHLY recommend them!

Registration for the conference is now open. Come and be a part of the conversation!

Conference Announced! "Unfinished Business: Bringing the Church Home"

I'm very excited to announce a conference that I will be hosting in November to dig into Luther's proposal for house churches! (TLDR folks can get straight to the registration page here.)

It was nearly 10 years ago that I first posted on this blog the little-known proposal that Luther wrote, in which he described lay-led, home-based faith communities. Since then it's never been far from my mind.

Now it's time to start a conversation and see what emerges from that. Like when Luther posted the 95 Theses expecting to start an academic debate and things kinda took on a life of their own. Just a little bit.  ;)  So here's the lowdown:

Date: Saturday, November 18th
Time: 9am - 2pm
Location: St. Stephen's Lutheran Church
                 West St. Paul, MN
Cost: $10 (includes lunch)

Registration Page
Facebook Page

What to expect:

We'll set the table with some information, first by looking at the text of Luther's proposal and any historical attempts to put it into practice. Then we'll have a quick fly-by of contemporary groups that are exploring ways to be church that are similar to Luther's proposal. With that as a starting point, the main focus of the conference will be working together to assess the pros and cons of this approach, and the arguments for and against putting it into practice.

The conference is open to the public. It will be of particular interest to people who are looking for renewal in the Church, and for those who have become frustrated or disillusioned by the challenges of the "standard model" for congregational life, with it's dependence on property, programs, professionals and presentational worship. (These people are often referred to as the "Dones," as they are "done with church, but not with faith." For more on them see my posts here and here.)

When the conference is over, I  will have print materials, summaries of conversations, and no doubt video of some sessions/presentations that I will be making available. If you would like to be notified when these materials are available, just fill out the form below and I will keep you in the loop.

Hope to see you there, and please, SPREAD THE WORD!!!

Tim

Mailing list for resource updates:

The "Unchurching" Comic Book and the Unfinished Business of the Reformation

Friends - I've been mulling recently about what I consider to be the "unfinished business" of the Reformation as we are in the midst of the 500th anniversary of all that getting going. To me, the unfinished business is the empowerment of the "laity," which is the churchy word for "everyone who's not a clergyperson."

Luther himself proposed a bold move for that, but never launched it, and I've written about that on this blog before. That may be the most important post on this blog, come to think of it.

In the mean time, I want to lift up for you the work of Richard Jacbson who's written a really engaging book called "Unchurching: Christianity without Churchianity." There's a Facebook group and podcast around that now, and the latest incarnation is a comic book version that the focus of a Kickstarter campaign featured below.

I encourage you to take a look, and consider supporting this work! I for one believe it is past time for us to be asking better questions and launching bolder experiments in how we follow Jesus and bless the world. I salute Richard for being a part of that work.

House Churches and the ELCA?

There's been some house church activity in my ELCA denomination over the years and now there's a one-day conference coming up to explore this direction October 23-24! If you've followed this blog much, you know that's a topic near and dear to my heart. I've got 55 posts with that tag... so far, and pretty much started this blog in April 2007 in order to advance this conversation. I'll be there. Care to join me?

Maybe the "dones" are done with the "form" of church we offer them.

This is something I wrote, pulled from a different online conversation about the "dones" (people who are still believers but are "done with church") but I thought I'd drop it here as well. Apologies for the lack of context.

"I wish I could attribute this quote, but I've forgotten... "Many people are leaving the church, not because they have lost their faith, but in order to preserve it."  Might be Reggie McNeal or Brian McLaren. (What's up with those McGuys?)  　

Faith and community are not to be separated.  But the *form* that a faith community takes can vary hugely.  Like water taking on the shape of it's container.

Conventional, institutional church is a *form* that faith community has taken in recent generations. This *form* has become a barrier and a threat to the faith of many.  And even to those of us born in and *native* to the form, the burden of *maintaining the form* in the midst of post-Christendom has become too heavy to bear.  Hence the "dones" who are yet believers, and are "shaking off" the (current form) "dust" from their feet.

Fortunately, our most familiar form is not the only option.  House churches, Missional Communities and other things that don't even have useful labels/terms for them yet.

This is the road I am taking. Part of the shape of the old form is good professional incomes for seminary graduates like me and my wife.  That's not likely to be common in new forms. Oh well. So be it. Lay down your life and all that. It's what I signed up for.  :)"

Leaning into Transformation in the "Experience Economy"

My friend Rich Melheim posted the following comment about The Experience Economy, a book aimed at secular marketing and business:

"SUMMER READING: In "The Experience Economy" (the only business book I've seen dedicated to the "author and perfector of our faith") the book starts with a value graph, showing that people don't value commodities, goods, or services much any more. We value experiences. By the end of the book, we see that experience isn't even the top value. The top value is transformation. That puts your "service" in the center of things people no longer value. When I say "forget the IHS" (one hour service), I mean the one-way show you put on for people. It has little value any more. Get EPIC (experiential, participatory, image driven, conversational) a la Leonard Sweet."

I've written before about the limited bang for the buck in Sunday morning worship, and affirmed but challenged the relative value we put on large vs. small gatherings in the first blog post I ever wrote, using the food pyramid as a metaphor.   But radical realignment is an unlikely challenge for a congregation to take on.  

Even so, we can use this to frame our thinking.  For conventional-model congregations (i.e. programs, property, professionals and presentational worship), how can you clearly and effectively leverage *each* of those four aspects of your life towards transformation?

And for my friends in 3dm and related movements, (house church, Life Transformation Groups etc.) here's yet another confirmation of your instinct to set aside most of the apparatus of conventional church so that life-on-life can really be your focus.  That is, I'm convinced, where the most fertile soil is for transformation.

Can the Big Church Fish See the Water?

A friend offered this question in a pastor's forum:

"How robust of an institution does a local congregation really need? A side conversation... got me thinking about church organized in a manner of an AA group, or perhaps the Scouts, or little league sports teams - few if any staff at the local level, oversight and organization at a regional level, nimble, and gathering in homes and other community spaces. What think you? Could the church thrive with a much more stripped down, streamlined, loose association?"

To which I replied:

"I think what your describing is similar to both the early church and the church under persecution in China - both cases of explosive growth. If we weren't already *in* such a hugely different paradigm, we might be asking the question from the other side: "How robust could the church be if it tried to operate with a minimum size that was so large you were required to add layers of organization and find special buildings just to even have a meeting?""

Agitating the Lutherans (Again)

Here's a little inside baseball for my Lutheran readers. I've been pressing the house church conversation on some Facebook forums and thought I'd collect a couple of my posts here as well:

"Along with the anxieties over wandering away from theological orthodoxy, another panic point in the house church conversation among Lutherans is presiding at communion. ("Panic point" is a bit condescending... sorry about that. Couldn't resist the alliteration.) Case in point, Clint Schnekloth posted a comment about the "Babylonian Captivity" of the Eucharist expressed in our extreme avoidance of having non-ordained people preside, and it's elicited over 500 comments in just over 2 days. That's called touching a nerve."

"Our theology staunchly affirms that the validity of the sacrament is NOT dependent on who presides. Yet our practice consistently and powerfully contradicts, and IMO trumps our theology in the minds of laity and many clergy."

"The "good order" standard is a huge leverage point I think we need to lean on as much as possible. It's one of the greatest assets of Lutheranism, because it points us to the importance of pragmatism. When I look at the entirety of our congregational life - everything from these kinds of presiding questions to the huge investment in large group weekly worship - I just keep asking; just how good does anyone think our current "order" is??? Blessed as we are with hugely valuable insights in theology, our key temptation is to evaluate "goodness" solely based on theological concerns. Meanwhile, our practice for shaping lives that enflesh the richness of our theology is manifestly ineffective."

Satire Suggests... House Church?

Found this editorial cartoon in the paper today which gives a window onto how the church is viewed:

Regardless of how fair you feel the critique is, it does suggest, to me at least, a different kind of message from heaven one might want to keep an ear open for.  Something along these lines:

Now, how's that again O Loving One?  I ask a handful of people to manage your money and use the edifice they already have to live a glorious life of joy and generosity that clearly has your name written all over it?  Then we plead for others to join us with their big bucks to live lives of simplicity and service, to show we're not faking it, and to demonstrate that your beneficence is not a ponzi scheme?  Say, this sounds pretty good!

The Future of Church?

A thread got started in a Facebook forum for ELCA pastors in response to this simple post:

"The future of the Church.  Discuss."

I bit.  Here's what I wrote.  Probably needs some unpacking... let me know which parts make you go "Huh?"

The larger community gathers monthly, with Luther-style Third Order/house church groups gathering the other weeks. At the monthly you get full meal deal celebration worship and a sermon/message/teaching that's been a month in the making. No more time pressure to be done in an hour. Plus the band/choir is awesome because they get a month to prep for every gathering. Always linked to a community meal. Prayer requests and praise reports from the weekly groups. In the weeklies, you have a month to process and work on applying the teaching in a supportive accountability, shared-life community. Parents collaborate and support each other in nurturing the faith of the kids. Pastors get to take the time saved from the weekly worship cycle and devote it to mentoring the leaders of the weekly groups. Oh, and since you only need the building one Sunday a month you can have the whole thing shared by four congregations and cut your facility costs by 75%. Even more if you can team up with some wackos who think it's OK to worship on some other day of the week. Yeah. Something like that.

Church Can Be Different 3 - 100% of Offerings to the Poor

Let me introduce you to Keith Giles, "Author, Blogger, Missionary" who planted a church that gives 100% of their offerings to the poor.  He tells his story here, and below is a glimpse of how his church has reached out to their neighbors. (For them, "neighbors" really does mean the folks on their street.)  The excerpt below is from his church's blog.

"...from the beginning (about five years ago now) we started reaching out to the kids in our neighborhood. At first that involved leading Kids Church in our home on Sunday mornings. Mainly because Wendy and I had been children's pastors at our previous church (and we loved teaching kids together), and also because by inviting the kids in our neighborhood to come on a Sunday morning we would figure out which families already went to church somewhere and which one's didn't. Most of them, we figured out, didn't attend anywhere on Sunday mornings.

Later, we hosted pancake breakfasts for everyone in our cul-de-sac on the Fourth of July and we intentionally went out of our way to meet our actual neighbors, invite them over for dinner, take out their trashcans for them, and serve them in whatever ways we could. In essence, we determined that we would become missionaries to our neighbors. 

Over time, (and this is an ongoing story), we got to pray for families in real trouble. We got to encourage them. We got to share Jesus with their kids. We got to see their kids fall in love with Jesus. We got to share groceries with families in financial need. We got to tutor their kids in math and spelling. We got to babysit when they were in a bind. 

Suffice it to say, our neighbors know that there's a church on their street, and they know that we love them and that Jesus loves them. We're still hoping to make a deeper impact for them and to bring the Kingdom of God into their lives in a more powerful way, but we also know that God wants this even more than we do and He will lead us as we continue to submit ourselves to Him."

Church Can Be Different - 2

No pulpit, no pews, no "pastor," no programs, no property.  No budget, no band.

People in prayer, baptism, conversion, spontaneous "church planting" to a new site (i.e. living room), joyful invitations spreading on social networks.

Read the story from Felicity Dale below and that's what you'll see.  You can find the original post here.

Church can be different.

   __________________________________________________________________________

A story from our simple/organic church--and an urgent request

We need to go away more often. It's amazing what happens when we leave the country. 

We currently have a simple/organic church that meets in our home. It's actually run by our daughter and son-in-law. We turn up from time to time.

For most of September and part of October, Tony and I were in Russia and the UK. Shortly after we left, a young man named Jose (aged 15) turned up at the gathering--schoolfriend of two nieces of Roxie who is part of the church. Jose is a sweet, incredibly loving, guy with a great sense of humor and a real love for the Lord. Jose had one thing on his heart.

"Pray that my mom will come to church with me. She needs Jesus."

His prayer was speedily answered. The very next week his mom, Rosaura, came with him. Rosaura had many needs. She had major problems with both drugs (including crack) and alcohol. The group spent most of their time together that week praying for her. She surrendered her life to Jesus and was completely delivered--no substance abuse since then. 

The following week the group didn't meet for various reasons but Rosaura was anxious that her sister, who has also had problems with alcoholism, get prayed for too. So Roxie opened up her home and the sister was set free too. Roxie has had a weekly get-together in her home since then.

Two weeks ago we were back in the country. That week, during our time together, Rosaura's sister gave her heart to the Lord.

Jose's simple faith led to his mother and aunt finding Jesus.

Last week, the family turned up with some devastating news.

"Jose has been diagnosed with a brain tumor!"

Apparently Jose had been having increasing problems with headaches and deteriorating vision. He saw an eye doctor early last week. Several urgent specialist visits later, he was diagnosed with a large, infiltrating tumor pressing on his optic nerve and pituitary gland. He is scheduled for the 8-hour surgery tomorrow.  Full recovery of both nerves and his endocrine system is expected to take more than a year. As yet, there is no way to know if the tumor is malignant or benign.

Rosaura is standing firm in her new-found faith. The morning Jose was due to see  the neurosurgeon, she asked the Lord, "Please show me something from your word." She opened her Bible randomly to Mark 1 and put her finger down on verses 30-34--the story of Jesus healing not just Peter's mother-in-law but also many other sick  or demon-possessed people. She knows that Jesus is working in her son's life.

Two days ago, we had a phone call from Roxie. 

"Jose and Rosaura want to get baptized tomorrow before Jose's operation."

So yesterday evening, around 40 people gathered around our hot tub as Jose and Rosaura were gloriously baptized.  Many of their family members and friends were there, several having come into town to support Jose and Rosaura through the ordeal of major surgery. 

So here's our urgent request: obviously we have prayed for Jesus to heal Jose, but his surgery is scheduled for 10 am tomorrow morning. Rosaura has given permission for us to tell her story and to enlist others in the battle for Jose's life and health. Please pray that if the tumor is still there, it is easily removed without complications, and that Jose makes a full recovery with no residual effects. And it would be wonderful if you would get others to pray too. 

Many thanks--and if the Lord reveals anything to you as you pray, let us know.

Church - and life - can be different

Came across this article today about some house church folks who are doing what is sometimes called "incarnational ministry" in Kansas City.  They and others have intentionally moved into a "blighted" area of town.  It reminded me of what I wrote in part of my Facebook profile: "Christianity may be a religion, but following Jesus is an alternative lifestyle and faith is a lived relationship."  Check it out if you'd like a little window into different ways to live the faith.

Cultivating community: Church members forsake suburbs to put down roots in struggling urban neighborhood

Napkin Diagram for Simple/Organic Church

Can there be a simple description of "Simple Church?"   You'd think so!  Roy McClung at Maximize My Ministry took a shot at it in the video below.

Note how he takes pains to be gentle in the comparison of simple and institutional church forms, stating that he is "in no way attacking" the more familiar form.  I have found that spirit to be common among the people I've encountered who are pursuing simple church (e.g. House2House and CMA).  It's a very good sign.

If you like napkin diagrams you may want to look at the one I've posted that shows how most of our resources are spent on the least effective things in conventional church settings - again, an argument in favor of simple church.  I'd also like to point out that I used a real napkin, which is more simple than Roy's fancy-schmancy video.  So there.

Twin Cities House Church Coalition

David Brown

I recently met David Brown, a UMC Pastor who has launched "A coalition of house churches across the Twin Cities living in the way of Jesus" called STORM Faith Community.  At some point I'd like to post a little profile/interview with him here but for now I suggest you visit his website if you are interested in House Church groups in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul Area.

I would add though, that this is one of only a couple of cases I know of where a mainline denomination is actually investing in a home-based faith community as a missional strategy.  (If you know of others please let me know!)  The proof of that pudding is that STORM only gathers for large group worship monthly.  That may sound familiar if you've been reading my blog from the beginning since that pattern was part of my very first musings:

I began to wonder… what would it do for the life of the people if they met weekly in small groups, and then monthly, perhaps even quarterly for a rip-roarin’ pull-out-the-stops large group, corporate worship celebration? I thought about the possibilities for spiritual growth and evangelism. I thought about the time and the money it would release. I thought about the amazing celebrations we could do if we had a month or more to prepare for each one. I thought about the enormous decrease in the facilities needed. Then I realized, there is a name for the kind of congregational life where the small group is the main thing instead of an extra thing.

It’s called the house church.

Blessings, Dave.  May your house increase!

Felicity Dale: House Church Going "Mainstream?"

Felicity Dale

Tony and Felicity Dale are prominent voices in the House Church community in the US, and good folks in general I've had the pleasure to meet and talk with several times.  In fact, their annual House2House conference was my first substantive introduction to HC, back in 2006.  So Felicity's blog is one I follow routinely.  Her most recent post, copied below, gives a nice snapshot of their early involvement in House Church in the UK, but more importantly provides a look into where the movement is at now in the States.

Note how her choice of "Option 3" at the end reveals a lack of competitive or us vs. them spirit.  I'm pleased to say that I have found that to be common among the HC folks I've encountered.  Also, if you go to her post and look at the comments, you'll see some good discussion around the poll numbers re. HC involvement.

If you want to keep an ear to the ground on HC developments, Felicity's blog is a good place to go.

TT

How do we respond when our radical thinking becomes mainstream?

This post is a follow up on trend number 4 from the last post, that we will see an increasing acceptance of simple/organic church principles across the legacy church spectrum.

Back in the UK, in the 1970s and 80's, we were involved in what was then known as the "British House Church Movement."  It was a heady, exciting time taking place against the backdrop of the charismatic renewal that swept much of the world, and it transformed the church landscape of the UK.   Although it became a megachurch movement because we did not have a theology of multiplying the small, for its day it was a radical, forward-thinking movement embodying many of the principles we now hold dear--things like non-religious Christianity, every member participation etc.  We reckon that about one third of British evangelicalism was transformed by that move of God over the next decade or so.

Fast forward a few years to 1996.  We are now in the States, having gone through 9 years of God's favorite training school on the backside of the desert, and God starts speaking to us after 9 years of silence.  The first thing he says is,"You'll be a part of a move of my Spirit again."  The implications of this as we asked the Lord about it is that we would see a  move of the Spirit that would have a similar impact on the church landscape of America.

When the simple/organic movement began to gain momentum a few years ago, it was generally dismissed as, at best, irrelevant.  We were the radicals, the minority with some crazy ideas.  We never dreamt that these ideas would become mainstream. But this is happening right in front of our eyes!  For example, Austin Stone, one of the 100 fastest growing churches in the country, is a megachurch here in Austin.  Earlier this year they held a conference called Verge.  It was sold out within a few short weeks.  Around 2,000 people attended, almost all from mega- and legacy churches, with more than 4,000 joining online.  What is interesting is that the majority of the speakers were simple/organic/house church proponents--people like Neil Cole, David Watson, David Garrison, George Patterson, Alan Hirsch.  They spoke about missional communities, Luke 10 principles and church planting movements.  This coming year, Verge is joining with Exponential for the largest church planters conference in the country and the theme will be similar.

Not only that, Austin Stone actively encourages their people to start missional communities with unbelievers, not insisting that those people and those they reach, come back to the mother church. Maybe because of this relaxed approach, most choose to stay in close relationship with them.  Here in Austin, several of the mega churches are actively seeking to reach out with the missional community approach.  They recognize it as the only way to effectively touch every part of society.

The Lord has given Joel Hunter, the senior pastor of Northland: A Church Distributed, in Orlando, a new task.  They are to facilitate the start of 1 million house churches around the world.  In typical Northland fashion, they are doing this by partnering with other groups who are more directly involved in missions or house churches, and they seek no credit for their part in what is created.

Like it or not,  (and personally I am very excited about it even though I recognize some of the potential pitfalls)  simple/organic church concepts are in the process of becoming mainstream. Many mega- and legacy churches see this as the way forward. God is speaking to them, and he's saying the same things to them that he is speaking to those of us involved in simple/organic churches. And to be honest, as some of these churches embrace the principles of reaching out to the world via missional communities, they have the potential to change our cities even more than we do because many of them have large numbers of young, radical, on-fire disciples who are longing to reach out into their communities.

The secular media is taking notice.  There are an increasing number of articles such as this one about house churches.  According to the latest Pew Forum figures, 9% of Protestants worship in their homes. Legacy churches of all kinds are embracing simple/organic church principles and attempting to implement them within their context.

My question is, how are we going to react?  Those of us in the simple/organic church movement have several options:

1. Are we going to criticize because they aren't doing everything right (according to our thinking)?  That we have the "pure" form of church and unless they do it our way, they are taking a lower path.

2. Are we going to cheer them on from the sidelines?

3. Are we going to work cooperatively with them, rejoicing in all that God is doing in their midst, helping where we can, accepting their help where they offer it? 

Personally, I'm for number 3.   What could happen in our cities if we all work together and nobody minds who gets the credit?

Sunday Services: the Blind Spot and Sacred Cow in Church Decline

Dave Householder has written a bracing post about the decline of the Lutherans in North America that is well worth reading. He gets extra credit for leading off with this; "This article is not just for Lutherans. It applies to most North American faith families." I expect the comments are really good too, but with 90 at last count I confess I lacked the fortitude to actually read them all!

He cites ten factors contributing to decline, including:

• Low birth rate
• Poor retention of the babies we do have
• Staggering ineffectiveness in evangelism
• Unwelcoming if not toxic parish communities
• Little or no effective use of media

Decline has been an ongoing topic of my blog. I've integrated several of his points into the "pond metaphor" where you can easily see why the church used to grow but is in decline now. I even threw together a metric for "evangelical effectiveness" that is pretty jarring to look at.

But after reading David's post I still think that one of the most significant issues is going unnamed: the inherent ineffectiveness of Sunday morning gatherings, both for discipleship and for evangelism. Yet we persist in making these gatherings the centerpiece of our faith-life culture, and investing the vast majority of our time, energy and money in maintaining them as I've discussed here. Sunday morning, large group, presentational, professionally led, property-dependent worship services are, I'm afraid, both our biggest blind spot and our most sacred cow.

And this central assumption about the way to "do church" is perhaps the most unifying feature of North American Christendom. It can't be much of an overstatement to say that we all do it that way. No wonder then, that the decline spans the decades so readily and cuts so easily across denominational lines, and the liberal/conservative divide.

Large group gatherings are not bad. But as the centerpiece of faith practice they can never be effective in spreading or nurturing the faith. That requires face to face, heart to heart conversation, which is notoriously difficult to have in a pew, disrespectful during the preaching, and drowned out by the performance be it the organ or the band.